I’ve been talking with people lately about social media, and I realized that a definition was in order.

When you say “social media” a lot of people think Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and maybe MySpace or YouTube. But there’s a lot more to social media than those sites.

I define social media as “any way people meet each other, interact and build relationships on-line.”

Certainly the five sites above fit that definition. But it’s much broader than that.

On-line forums or boards are social media. I hang out in the Wizards of the Coast D&D boards and a forum for people who write Torchwood fanfiction. I mostly lurk on those boards, but if I wanted to, I could certainly build relationships there.

Listservs or email groups like Yahoo! Groups are another form of social media. I’m on the Kindelkorner Yahoo group. It’s been an invaluable source of information about self-publishing in addition to being a great place to find out about free books. Again, I tend to lurk. I can only be active in so many social media channels, but there are regular people whom I recognize. Some I like and respect. Some I don’t. Just like interactions and relationships in the face-to-face world.

My husband loves to play chess. Chess.com is the site he uses to find and play with people from around the world. There are lots of social media elements to the site, so even my husband (who insists he doesn’t do this social media thing) is active in social media. But don’t tell him, okay?

The multitude of options is why its so important to have a reason and a strategy before diving into social media. If, for example, your target market is knitting fanatics, Twitter might not be the best place for you to go. But a knitting group on Yahoo! Groups (I found 6515 when I did a search) might be perfect.

Interested in the TV show Caprica (my latest obsession)? Check out LiveJournal. I found three communities there, and I’m sure there are more.

Social media encompasses so much more than Facebook and Twitter. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be doing an intermittent series of posts on social media strategy, time management and generally what to do once you begin the interaction.

That’s the feedback I’ve been getting from people. There’s a need. I’ll try to answer it.

But if you’re looking for face to face stuff, don’t despair. I’ll continue to post plenty on that topic as well.

Tags: Relationship building, social media

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 10:53 am and is filed under social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.